Words on a page that might help me, or you, someday, maybe.

Reunion

Today I found out that my old flatmates had a University reunion that I wasn’t invited to. I’m in a group chat with some of the boys from the house, and they were messaging this morning saying what time they got back to their houses after the train etc. Apparently one of the girls had ‘invited the old Cardiff house’ up to Leeds to celebrate her birthday. ‘We even got Mat out of Wales for once,’ one of the messages said.

I jumped in and said ‘All of the old Cardiff house?‘. They all read it. I got one reply that wasn’t a fucking emoji. ‘Drop Rhian a message and ask for an explanation.’

I didn’t bother. I was pretty depressed for the rest of the day.

I get that I’ve not exactly been the most socially active member of the group since we finished Uni. The day I graduated I deleted Facebook and Snapchat, and haven’t had a meaningful presence on either of them since. I guess I haven’t invited any of them to anything, but I’ve had nothing to invite them to. Without Facebook, I’ve forgotten their birthdays, and didn’t send them a message. But did I get any birthday messages? Nope.

It’s a social media generation, I get that. But do people really take ‘Facebook’ friends that seriously that if I’m un-contactable on Facebook then I must not exist? I haven’t changed my phone number in seven years.

Writing it down, I don’t really know why I’m angry. I’m not super close with the girls any more, but I thought I was pretty close with the boys. And all of the boys were there. Except me. And none of them thought to mention it. Or maybe they did, but there’s something else going on.

Maybe I’ve wronged one of them somehow, or maybe they’ve just forgotten about me.

It just felt really bad that I was the only person excluded from the invite. It felt personal, and I take everything personally as it is, so it felt like, really personal. It’s fucked with my head.

I’m not a particularly social creature, and today I became fully aware of that. In fact, I figured out that excluding my girlfriend, I have a grand total of one friend that lives within ninety minutes of my house. Well, one friend to whom I am not in-law-related. And that one friend is moving to London in August. Other than him, my friends are in London, or Coventry, or Reading, or somewhere in the fucking army, or Cardiff.

At least, I thought the ones in Cardiff were my friends.

So today I became acutely aware of how alone I feel. And it’s just going to get worse in August. And what if something happens between me and Alice and I lose her too? Then I’ve just got my fucking hamster for company, unless Alice gets the hamster in the ‘divorce’, that is.

To combat this suffocating loneliness, I’ve just spent sixty quid that I don’t have on a train ticket to London this weekend, so I can see an actual friend that I actually have. Alice has friends over ours weekend, so I need to get away and I need to see a friendly face. And fortunately I still have one of those that isn’t going anywhere.

This was supposed to be one of those cathartic letters you write to someone who has annoyed you, telling them why they’ve annoyed you. Writing it down is therapeutic. I wasn’t going to press publish, but fuck it.